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SELF-CULTURE 



WILLIAM £. CHANNING 



SELF-CULTURE 



AN ADDRESS INTRODUCTORY TO THE 
FRANKLIN LECTURES, 



DELIVERED AT BOSTON, SEPTEMBER, 

1838. 



BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES MUNROE & CO., NO. 134, WASHINGTON STREET. 

1839. 



Ld 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-Eighi 

By David Kimball, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts, 



KBW YORK PUBL, UBR. 
IN &XC£ULNQft. 



• i • 



DUTTON AND WENTWORTH'S PRINT 

10 and 12 Exchange Street. 






At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the " Franklin Lectures," holden Novem- 
ber 8th, 1838, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : 

Voted, That the thanks of this Committee be presented to the Rev. William E. Chan- 
ning, for the interesting and valuable Lecture delivered by him, introductory to the 
Seventh Course of Franklin Lectures. 

Voted, That Dr. Walter Channing, Hon. Jonathan Phillips, and Enoch Hobart, Esq., be 
a Committee to communicate the foregoing resolution, and request a copy for the press. 

DAVID KIMBALL, Secretary. 



To Dr. Walter Channing, Hon. Jonathan Phillips, and Enoch Hobart, Esq. : 

Gentlemen : 

I thank you for communicating to me the vote of the Executive Committee of the 
Franklin Lectures, and I place at your disposal the Lecture which they have requested 
for publication. 

Very truly, your friend, 

WM. E. CHANNING. 



This address was intended to make two lectures 5 but the author was led^ 
abridge it and deliver it as one, partly by the apprehension, that some passag 
were too abstract for a popular address, partly t secure the advantages of pr 
senting the whole subject at once and in close connection, and for other reaso 
which need not be named. Most of the passages, which were omitted, are nc 
published. The author respectfully submits the discourse to those, for whom 
was particularly intended, and to the public, in the hope, that it will at least brh 
a great subject before the minds of some, who may not as yet have given to it tl 
attention it deserves. 



*4 



ADDRESS. 



My respected friends : 

By the invitation of the committee of arrangements for the 
Franklin lectures, I now appear before you to offer some re- 
marks introductory to this course. My principal inducement for 
so doing is my deep interest in those of my fellow citizens, for 
whom these lectures are principally designed. I was informed, 
that they were to be attended chiefly by those, who are occupied 
by manual labor ; and, hearing this, I did not feel myself at lib- 
erty to decline the service, to which I had been invited. I 
wished by compliance to express my sympathy with this large 
portion of my race. I wished to express my sense of obligation 
to those, from whose industry and skill I derive almost all the 
comforts of life. I wished still more to express my joy in the 
efforts they are making for their own improvement, and my firm 
faith in their success. These motives will give a particular char- 
acter and bearing to some of my remarks. I shall speak occa- 
sionally as among those who live by the labor of their hands. 
But I shall not speak as one separated from them. I belong 



6 

rightfully to the great fraternity of working men. Happily in 
this community we all are born and bred to work ; and this hon- 
orable mark, set on us all, should bind together the various por- 
tions of the community. 

I have expressed my strong interest in the mass of the people ; 
and this is founded, not on their usefulness to the community, so 
much as on what they are in themselves. Their condition is in- 
deed obscure ; but their importance is not on this account a whit 
the less. The multitude of men cannot from the nature of the 
case be distinguished ; for the very idea of distinction is, that a 
man stands out from the multitude. They make little noise and 
draw little notice in their narrow spheres of action ; but still they 
have their full proportion of personal worth and even of great- 
ness. Indeed every man, in every condition, is great. It is only 
our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great 
as a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his 
nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions. His pow- 
ers of intellect, of conscience, of love, of knowing God, of per- 
ceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, on outward 
nature, and on his fellow creatures, these are glorious preroga- 
tives. Through the vulgar error of undervaluing what is com- 
mon, we are apt indeed to pass these by as of little worth. But 
as in the outward creation, so in the soul, the common is the 
most precious. Science and art may invent splendid modes of 
illuminating the apartment of the opulent ; but these are all poor 
and worthless, compared with the common light which the sun 
sends into all our windows, which he pours freely, impartially 
over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western 
sky ; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and 
love are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments 
which give celebrity to a few. Let us not disparage that nature 
which is common to all men ; for no thought can measure its 
grandeur. It is the image of God, the image even of his infinity, 
for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the 



divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it 
may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a 
dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks. But he is still great. 
You may shut him out of your houses ; but God opens to him 
heavenly mansions. He makes no show indeed in the streets of 
a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute 
act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind and 
far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster 
and stucco, however cunningly put together, or though stretch- 
ing far beyond our sight. Nor is this all. If we pass over this 
grandeur of our common nature, and turn our thoughts to that 
comparative greatness, which draws chief attention, and which 
consists in the decided superiority of the individual to the gene- 
ral standard of power and character, we shall find this as free 
and frequent a growth among the obscure and unnoticed as in 
more conspicuous walks of life. The truly great are to be found 
every where, nor is it easy to say, in what condition they spring 
up most plentifully. Real greatness has nothing to do with a 
. man's sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward 
agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The 
greatest men may do comparatively little abroad. Perhaps the 
greatest in our city at this moment are buried in obscurity. 
Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is, in the 
force of thought, moral principle and love, and this may be found 
in the humblest condition of life. A man brought up to an ob- 
scure trade, and hemmed in by the wants of a growing family, 
may, in his narrow sphere, perceive more clearly, discriminate 
more keenly, weigh evidence more wisely, seize on the right 
means more decisively, and have more presence of mind in diffi- 
culty, than another who has accumulated vast stores of knowl- 
edge by laborious study ; and he has more of intellectual great- 
ness. Many a man, who has gone but a few miles from home, 
understands human nature better, detects motives and weighs 
character more sagaciously, than another, who has travelled over 



8 

the known world, and made a name by his reports of different 
countries. It is force of thought which measures intellectual, 
and so it is force of principle which measures moral greatness, 
that highest of human endowments, that brightest manifestation 
of the Divinity. The greatest man is he who chooses the Right 
with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations 
from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheer- 
fully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace 
and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God is most 
unfaltering; and is this a greatness, which is apt to make a 
show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous station ? 
The solemn conflicts of reason with passion ; the victories of 
moral and religious principle over urgent and almost irresistible 
solicitations to self-indulgence; the hardest sacrifices of duty, 
those of deep-seated affection and of the heart's fondest hopes ; 
the consolations, hopes, joys, and peace of disappointed, perse- 
cuted, scorned, deserted virtue ; these are of course unseen ; so 
that the true greatness of human life is almost wholly out of 
sight. Perhaps in our presence, the most heroic deed on earth 
is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the 
most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I be- 
lieve this greatness to be most common among the multitude, 
whose names are never heard. Among common people will be 
found more of hardship borne manfully, mere of unvarnished 
truth, more of religious trust, more of that generosity which 
gives what the giver needs himself, and more of a wise estimate 
of life and death, than among the more prosperous.- — And even 
in regard to Influence over other beings, which is thought the 
peculiar prerogative of distinguished station, I believe, that the 
difference between the conspicuous and the obscure does not 
amount to much. Influence is to be measured, not by the ex- 
tent of surface it covers, but by its hind. A man may spread his 
mind, his feelings and opinions through a great extent ; but if 
his mind be a low one, he manifests no greatness A wretched 



artist may fill a city with daubs, and by a false showy style 
achieve a reputation ; but the man of genius, who leaves behind 
him one grand picture, in which immortal beauty is embodied, 
and which is silently to spread a true taste in his art, exerts an 
incomparably higher influence. Now the noblest influence on 
earth is that exerted on Character ; and he, who puts forth this, 
does a great work, no matter how narrow or obscure his sphere. 
The father and mother of an unnoticed family, who, in their se- 
clusion, awaken the mind of one child to the idea and love of 
perfect goodness, who awaken in him a strength of will to repel 
all temptation, and who send him out prepared to profit by the 
conflicts of life, surpass in influence a Napoleon breaking the 
world to his sway. And not only is their work higher in kind : 
who knows, but that they are doing a greater work even as to 
extent or surface than the conqueror ? Who knows, but that the 
being, whom they inspire with holy and disinterested principles, 
may communicate himself to others ; and that by a spreading 
agency, of which they were the silent origin, improvements may 
spread through a nation, through the world ? In these remarks 
you will see why I feel and express a deep interest in the ob- 
scure, in the mass of men. The distinctions of society vanish 
before the light of these truths. I attach myself to the multi- 
tude, not because they are voters and have political power ; but 
because they are men, and have within their reach the most glo- 
rious prizes of humanity. 

In this country, the mass of the people are distinguished by 
possessing means of improvement, of self-culture, possessed no 
where else. To incite them to the use of these, is to render 
them the l)est service they can receive. Accordingly I have 
chosen for the subject of this lecture, Self-culture, or the care 
which every man owes to himself, to the unfolding and perfect- 
ing of his nature. I consider this topic as particularly appro- 
priate to the introduction of a course of lectures, in consequence 
of a common disposition to regard these and other like means of 



10 



Instruction, as able of themselves to carry forward the hearer. 
Lectures have their use. They stir up many, who, but for such 
outward appeals, might have slumbered to the end of life. But 
let it be remembered, that little is to be gained simply by com- 
ing to this place once a week, and giving up the mind for an 
hour to be wrought upon by a teacher* Unless we are roused to 
act upon ourselves, unless we engage in the work of self-im- 
provement, unless we purpose strenuously to form and elevate 
our own minds, unless what we hear is made a part of ourselves 
by conscientious reflection, very little permanent good is re- 
ceived* 

Self-culture, I am aware, is a topic too extensive for a single 
discourse, and I shall be able to present but a few views which 
seem to me most important. My aim will be, to give first the 
Idea of self-culture, next its means, and then to consider some 
objections to the leading views which I am now to lay before 
you. 

Before entering on the discussion, let me offer one remark. 
Self-culture is something possible. It is not a dream. It has 
foundations in our nature. Without this conviction, the speaker 
will but declaim, and the hearer listen without profit. There 
are two powers of the human soul which make self-culture pos- 
sible, the self-searching and the self-forming power. We have 
first the faculty of turning the mind on itself; of recalling its 
past, and watching its present operations; of learning its various 
capacities and susceptibilities, what it can do and bear, what it 
can enjoy and suffer ; and of thus learning in general what our 
nature is, and what it was made for. It is worthy of observa- 
tion, that we are able to discern not only what we already are, 
but what we may become, to see in ourselves germs and promises 
of a growth to which no bounds can be set, to dart beyond what 
we have actually gained to the idea of Perfection as the end of 
our being. It is by this self-comprehending power that we are 
distinguished from the brutes, which give no signs of looking 



11 

into themselves. Without this there could be no self-culture, for 
we should not know the work to be done ; and one reason why 
self-culture is so little proposed is, that so few penetrate into 
their own nature. To most men, their own spirits are shadowy, 
unreal, compared with what is outward. When they happen to 
cast a glance inward, they see there only a dark, vague chaos. 
They distinguish perhaps some violent passion; which had driven 
them to injurious excess ; but their highest powers hardly at- 
tract a thought ; and thus multitudes live and die as truly stran- 
gers to themselves, as to countries, of which they have heard the 
name, but which human foot has never trodden. 

But self-culture is possible, not only because we can enter 
into and search ourselves. We have a still nobler power, that 
of acting on, determining and forming ourselves. This is a 
fearful as well as glorious endowment, for it is the ground of 
human responsibility. We have the power not only of tracing 
our powers, but of guiding and impelling them, not only of 
watching our passions, but of controlling them, not only of see- 
ing our faculties grow, but of applying to them means and in- 
fluences to aid their growth. We can stay or change the cur- 
rent of thought. We can concentrate the intellect on objects 
which we wish to comprehend. We can fix our eyes on perfec- 
tion and make almost every thing speed us towards it. This is 
indeed a noble prerogative of our nature. Possessing this, it 
matters little what or where we are now, for we can conquer a 
better lot, and even be happier for starting from the lowest 
point. Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most 
important at the present moment, is that of the self-forming pow- 
er treasured up in themselves. They little suspect its extent, as 
little as the savage apprehends the energy which the mind is 
created to exert on the material world. It transcends in impor- 
tance all our power over outward nature. There is more of di- 
vinity- in it, than in the force which impels the outward universe ; 
and yet how little we comprehend it ! How it slumbers in most 



12 



men unsuspected, unused ! This makes self-culture possible, 
and binds it on us as a solemn duty. 

I. I am first to unfold the idea of self-culture ; and this, in its 
most general form, may easily be seized. To cultivate any thing, 
be it a plant, an animal, a mind, is to make grow. Growth, ex- 
pansion is the end. Nothing admits culture, but that which has 
a principle of life, capable of being expanded. He, therefore, 
who does what he can to unfold all his powers and capacities, 
especially his nobler ones, so as to become a well proportioned, 
vigorous, excellent, happy being, practises self-culture. 

This culture of course has various branches corresponding to 
the different capacities of human nature ; but though various, 
they are intimately united and make progress together. The 
soul, which our philosophy divides into various capacities, is still 
one essence, one life ; and it exerts at the same moment, and 
blends in the same act its various energies of thought, feeling and 
volition. Accordingly, in a wise self-culture, all the principles 
of our nature grow at once by joint harmonious action, just as all 
parts of the plant are unfolded together. When therefore you 
hear of different branches of self-improvement, you will not think 
of them as distinct processes going on independently on each 
other, and requiring each its own separate means. Still a dis- 
tinct consideration of these is needed to a full comprehension of 
the subject, and these I shall proceed to unfold. 

First, self-culture is Moral, a branch of singular importance. 
When a man looks into himself he discovers two distinct orders 
or kinds of principles, which it behooves him especially to compre- 
hend. He discovers desires, appetites, passions which terminate 
l n himself, which crave and seek his own interest, gratification, 
distinction ; and he discovers another principle, an antagonist to 
these, which is Impartial, Disinterested, Universal, enjoining on 
him a regard to the rights and happiness of other beings, and 
laying on him obligations which must be discharged, cost what 



13 

they may, or however they may clash with his particular pleasure 
or gain. No man, however narrowed to his own interest, how- 
ever hardened by selfishness, can deny, that there springs up 
within him a great idea in opposition to interest, the idea of Duty, 
that an inward voice calls him more or less distinctly to revere and 
exercise Impartial Justice, and Universal Good-will. This disin- 
terested principle in human nature we call sometimes reason, 
sometimes conscience, sometimes the moral sense or faculty. 
But, be its name what it may, it is a real principle in each of us, 
and it is the supreme power within us, to be cultivated above all 
others, for on its culture the right development of all others de- 
pends. The passions indeed may be stronger than the conscience, 
may lift up a louder voice ; but their clamour differs wholly from 
the tone of command in which the conscience speaks. They are 
not clothed with its authority, its binding power. In their very 
triumphs they are rebuked by the moral principle, and often 
cower before its still, deep, menacing voice. No part of self- 
knowledge is more important, than to discern clearly these two 
great principles, the self-seeking and the disinterested ; and the 
most important part of self-culture is to depress the former, and 
to exalt the latter, or to enthrone the sense of duty within us. 
There are no limits to the growth of this moral force in man, if 
he will cherish it faithfully. There have been men, whom no 
power in the universe could turn from the Right, by whom death 
in its most dreadful forms has been less dreaded, than transgres- 
sion of the inward law of universal justice and love. 

In the next place, self-culture is Religious. When we look 
into ourselves we discover powers, which link us with this out- 
ward, visible, finite, ever changing world. We have sight and 
other senses to discern, and limbs and various faculties to secure 
and appropriate the material creation. And we have too a power, 
which cannot stop at what we see and handle, at what exists 
within the bounds of space and time, which seeks for the Infinite, 
2 



14 

Uncreated Cause, which cannot rest till it ascend to the Eternal, 
All-comprehending Mind. This we call the religious principle, 
and its grandeur cannot be exaggerated by human language ; for 
it marks out a being destined for higher communion than with 
the visible universe. To develop this, is eminently to educate 
ourselves. The true idea of God, unfolded clearly and livingly 
within us, and moving us to adore and obey him, and to aspire 
after likeness to him, is the noblest growth in human, and I may 
add, in celestial natures. The religious principle, and the moral, 
are intimately connected, and grow together. The former is 
indeed the perfection and highest manifestation of the latter. 
They are both disinterested. It is the essence of true religion to 
recognise and adore in God the attributes of Impartial Justice 
and Universal Love, and to hear him commanding us in the con- 
science to become what we adore. 

Again. Self-culture is Intellectual. We cannot look into 
ourselves without discovering the intellectual principle, the power 
which thinks, reasons, and judges, the power of seeking and ac- 
quiring truth. This indeed we are in no danger of overlooking. 
The intellect being the great instrument by which men compass 
their wishes, it draws more attention than any of our other powers. 
When we speak to men of improving themselves, the first thought 
whioh occurs to them is, that they must cultivate the understand- 
ing, and get knowledge and skill. By education, men mean 
almost exclusively intellectual training. For this, schools and 
colleges are instituted, and to this the moral and religious disci- 
pline of the young is sacrificed. Now I reverence, as much as 
any man, the intellect; but let us never exalt it above the moral 
principle. With this it is most intimately connected. In this its 
culture is founded, and to exalt this is its highest aim. Whoever 
desires that his intellect may grow up to soundness, to healthy 
vigour, must begin with moral discipline. Reading and study are 
not enough to perfect the power of thought. One thing above all 



15 



is needful, and that is, the Disinterestedness which is the very 
soul of virtue. To gain truth, which is the great object of the 
understanding, I must seek it disinterestedly. Here is the first 
and grand condition of intellectual progress. I must choose to 
receive the truth, no matter how it bears on myself. I must fol- 
low it, no matter where it leads, what interests it opposes, to what 
persecution or loss it lays me open, from what party it severs me, 
or to what party it allies. Without this fairness of mind, which is 
only another phrase for disinterested love of truth, great native pow- 
ers of understanding are perverted and lead astray ; genius runs 
wild ; " the light within us becomes darkness." The subtlest rea- 
soners, for want of this, cheat themselves as well as others, and 
become entangled in the web of their own sophistry. It is a fact 
well known in the history of science and philosophy, that men, 
gifted by nature with singular intelligence, have broached the 
grossest errors, and even sought to undermine the grand primitive 
truths on which human virtue, dignity and hope depend. And on 
the other hand, I have known instances of men of naturally mode- 
rate powers of mind, who by a disinterested love of truth and their 
fellow creatures, have gradually risen to no small force and en- 
largement of thought. Some of the most useful teachers in the 
pulpit and in schools, have owed their power of enlightening 
others, not so much to any natural superiority, as to the simpli- 
city, impartiality and disinterestedness of their minds, to their 
readiness to live and die for the truth. A man, who rises above 
himself, looks from an eminence on nature and providence, on 
society and life. Thought expands as by a natural elasticity, 
when the pressure of selfishness is removed. The moral and re- 
ligious principles of the soul, generously cultivated, fertilize the 
intellect. Duty, faithfully performed, opens the mind to Truth, 
both being of one family, alike immutable, universal and ever- 
lasting. 

I have enlarged on this subject, because the connexion be- 
tween moral and intellectual culture is often overlooked, and 



16 



because the former is often sacrificed to the latter. The exal- 
tation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and religion, is the 
curse of the age. Education is now chiefly a stimulus to learn- 
ing, and thus men acquire power without the principles which 
alone make it a good. Talent is worshipped; but, if divorced 
from rectitude, it will prove more of a demon than a God. 

Intellectual culture consists, not chiefly, as many are apt to 
think, in accumulating information, though this is important, 
but in building up a force of thought which may be turned at 
will on any subjects, on which we are called to pass judgment. 
This force is manifested in the concentration of the attention, in 
accurate penetrating observation, in reducing complex subjects 
to their elements, in diving beneath the effect to the cause, in 
detecting the more subtle differences and resemblances of things, 
in reading the future in the present, and especially in rising 
from particular facts to general laws or universal truths. This 
last exertion of the intellect, its rising to broad views and great 
principles, constitutes what is called the philosophical mind, and 
is especially worthy of culture. What it means, your own ob- 
servation must have taught you. You must hsve taken note of 
two classes of men, the one always employed on details, on par- 
ticular facts, and the other using these facts as foundations of 
higer, wider truths. The latter are philosophers. For example, 
men had for ages seen pieces of wood, stones, metals falling to 
the ground. Newton seized on these particular facts, and rose 
to the idea, that all matter tends, or is attracted, towards all mat- 
ter, and then defined the law according to which this attraction 
or force acts at different distances, thus giving us a grand prin- 
ciple, which, we have reason to think, extends to and controls 
the whole outward creation. One man reads a history, and can 
tell you all its events, and there stops. Another combines these 
events, brings them under one view, and learns the great causes 
which are at work on this or another nation, and what are its 
great tendencies whether to freedom or despotism, to one or 



17 

another form of civilization. So one man talks continually 
about the particular actions of this or another neighbor ; whilst 
another looks beyond the acts to the inward principle from 
which they spring, and gathers from them larger views of hu- 
man nature. In a word, one man sees all things apart and in 
fragments, whilst another strives to discover the harmony, con- 
nexion, unity of all. One of the great evils of society is, that 
men, occupied perpetually with petty details, want general 
truths, want broad and fixed principles. Hence many, not 
wicked, are unstable, habitually inconsistent, as if they were 
overgrown children rather than men. To build up that strength 
of mind, which apprehends and cleaves to great universal truths, 
is the highest intellectual self-culture ; and here I wish you to 
observe how entirely this culture agrees with that of the moral 
and the religious principles of our nature, of which I have pre- 
viously spoken. In each of these, the improvement of the soul 
consists in raising it above what is narrow, particular, individual, 
selfish, to the universal and unconfined. To improve a man, is 
to liberalize, enlarge him in thought, feeling and purpose. Nar- 
rowness of intellect and heart, this is the degradation from which 
all culture aims to rescue the human being. 

Again. Self-culture is Social, or one of its great offices is to 
unfold and purify the affections, which spring up instinctively in 
the human breast, which bind together husband and wife, pa- 
rent and child, brother and sister ; which bind a man to friends 
and neighbors, to his country, and to the suffering who fall un- 
der his eye, wherever they belong. The culture of these is an 
important part of our work, and it consists in converting them 
from instincts into principles, from natural into spiritual attach- 
ments, in giving them a rational, moral, and holy character. 
For example, our affection for our children is at first instinc- 
tive ; and if it continue such, it rises little above the brute's 
attachment to its young. But when a parent infuses into his 
natural love for his offspring moral and religions principle, when 



18 



he comes to regard his child as an intelligent, spiritual, im- 
mortal being, and honors him as such, and desires first of all to 
make him disinterested, noble, a worthy child of God and the 
friend of his race, then the instinct rises into a generous and 
holy sentiment, It resembles God's paternal love for his spir- 
itual family. A like purity and dignity we must aim to give to 
all our affections. 

Again. Self-culture is Practical, or it proposes as one of its 
chief ends to fit us for action, to make us efficient in whatever 
we undertake, to train us to firmness of purpose and to fruitful- 
ness of resource in common life, and especially in emergencies, 
in times of difficulty, danger and trial. But passing over this 
and other topics for which I have no time, I shall confine my- 
self to two branches of self-culture which have been almost 
wholly overlooked in the education of the people, and which 
ought not to be so slighted. 

In looking at our nature, we discover, among its admirable 
endowments, the sense or perception of Beauty. We see the 
germ of this in every human being, and there is no power which 
admits greater cultivation ; and why should it not be cherished 
in all ? It deserves remark, that the provision for this principle 
is infinite in the universe. There is but a very minute portion 
of the creation, which we can turn into food and clothes, or 
gratification for the body ; but the whole creation may be used 
to minister to the sense of beauty. Beauty is an all-pervading 
presence. It unfolds in the numberless flowers of the spring. 
It waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades of 
grass. It haunts the depths of the earth and sea, and gleams out 
in the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only 
these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds 
the heavens, the stars, the rising and setting sun, all overflow 
with beauty. The universe is its temple ; and those men, who 
are alive to it, cannot lift their eyes without feeling themselves 
encompassed with it on every side. Now this beauty is so pre- 



19 



cious, the enjoyments it gives are so refined and pure, so conge- 
nial with our tenderest and noble feelings, and so akin to wor- 
ship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of men as living 
in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it, as if, instead 
of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dun- 
geon. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture 
of this spiritual endowment. Suppose that I were to visit a cot- 
tage, and to see its walls lined with the choicest pictures of 
Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most 
exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn, that neither 
man, woman nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, 
how should I feel their privation ; how should I want to open 
their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveli- 
ness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice. But ev- 
ery husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner ar- 
tist; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he 
see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions 
and moral expression! I have spoken only of the beauty of na- 
ture, but how much of this mysterious charm is found in the 
elegant arts, and especially in literature ? The best books have 
most beauty. The greatest truths are wronged if not linked 
with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply 
into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire. 
Now no man receives the true culture of a man, in whom the 
sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished ; and I know of no 
condition in life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxu- 
ries this is the cheapest and most at hand ; and it seems to me 
to be most important to those conditions, where coarse labor 
tends to give a grossness to the mind. From the diffusion of the 
sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for music in 
modern Germany, we learn that the people at large, may partake 
of refined gratifications which have hitherto been thought to be 
necessarily restricted to a few. 

What beauty is, is a question which the most penetrating 



20 



minds have not satisfactorily answered; nor, were I able, is this 
the place for discussing it. But one thing I would say; the 
beauty of the outward creation is intimately related to the lovely, 
grand, interesting attributes of the soul. It is the emblem or 
expression of these. Matter becomes beautiful to us, when it 
seems to lose its material aspect, its inertness, finiteness and 
grossness, and by the ethereal lightness of its forms and motions, 
seems to approach spirit ; when it images to us pure and gentle 
affections; when it spreads out into a vastness which is a shadow 
of the Infinite; or when in more awful shapes and movements it 
speaks of the Omnipotent. Thus outward beauty is akin to 
something deeper and unseen, is the reflection of spiritual at- 
tributes ; and of consequence the way to see and feel it more 
and more keenly, is to cultivate those moral, religious, intellec- 
tual and social principles of which I have already spoken, and 
which are the glory of the spiritual nature; and I name this 
that you may see, what I am anxious to show, the harmony 
which subsists among all branches of human culture, or how- 
each forwards and is aided by all. 

There is another power, which each man should cultivate ac- 
cording to his ability, but which is very much neglected in the 
mass of the people, and that is the power of Utterance. A man 
was not made to shut up his mind in itself; but to give it voice 
and to exchange it for other minds. Speech is one of our grand 
distinctions from the brute. Our power over others lies not so 
much in the amount of thought within us, as in the power of 
bringing it out. A man of more than ordinary intellectual vigor, 
may, for want of expression, be a cypher, without significance, in 
society. And not only does a man influence others, but he greatly 
aids his own intellect, by giving distinct and forcible utterance to 
his thoughts. We understand ourselves better, our conceptions 
grow clearer, by the very effort to make them clear to another 
Our social rank too depends a good deal on our power of utte- 
rance. The principal distinction between what are called gentle- 



21 

men and the vulgar lies in this, that the latter are awkward in 
manners, and are especially wanting in propriety, clearness, grace, 
and force of utterance. A man who cannot open his lips without 
breaking a rule of grammar, without showing in his dialect or 
brogue or uncouth tones his want of cultivation, or without dark- 
ening his meaning by a confused, unskilful mode of communica- 
tion, cannot take the place to which perhaps his native good sense 
entitles him. To have intercourse with respectable people, we 
must speak their language. On this account, I am glad that gram- 
mar and a correct pronunciation are taught in the common 
schools of this city. These are not trifles ; nor are they super- 
fluous to any class of people. They give a man access to social 
advantages, on which his improvement very much depends. The 
power of utterance should be included by all in their plans of 
self*culture. 

I have now given a few views of the culture, the improvement, 
which every man should propose to himself. I have all along 
gone on the principle, that a man has within him capacities of 
growth, which deserve and will reward intense, unrelaxing toil. 
I do not look on a human being as a machine, made to be kept 
in action by a foreign force, to accomplish an unvarying succes- 
sion of motions, to do a fixed amount of work, and then to fall to 
pieces at death, but as a being of free spiritual powers ; and I 
place little value on any culture, but that which aims to bring out 
these and to give them perpetual impulse and expansion. I am 
aware, that this view is far from being universal. The common 
notion has been, that the mass of the people need no other cul- 
ture than is necessary to fit them for their various trades ; and 
though this error is passing away, it is far from being exploded- 
But the ground of a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his 
calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inhe- 
rent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated^ 
because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nails, or 



22 



pins. A trade is plainly not the great end of his being, for his 
mind cannot be shut up in it ; his force of thought cannot be ex- 
hausted on it. He has faculties to which it gives no action, and 
deep wants it cannot answer. Poems, and systems of theology 
and philosophy, which have made some noise in the w r orld, have 
been wrought at the work-bench and amidst the toils of the field. 
How often, when the arms are mechanically plying a trade, does 
the mind, lost in reverie or day dreams, escape to the ends of the 
earth ! How often does the pious heart of woman mingle the 
greatest of all thoughts, that of God, with household drudgery ! 
Undoubtedly a man is to perfect himself in his trade, for by it he 
is to earn his bread and to serve the community. But bread or 
subsistence is not his highest good; for if it were, his lot would 
be harder than that of the inferior animals, for whom nature 
spreads a table and weaves a wardrobe, without a care of their 
own. Nor was he made chiefly to minister to the wants of the 
community. A rational moral being cannot without infinite 
wrong be converted into a mere instrument of others' gratifica- 
tion. He is necessarily an end, not a means. A mind, in which 
are sown the seeds of wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of pur- 
pose, and piety, is worth more than all the outward material 
interests of a world. It exists for itself, for its own perfection, 
and must not be enslaved to its own or others' animal wants. 
You tell me, that a liberal culture is needed for men who are to 
fill high stations, but not for such as are doomed to vulgar labor. 
I answer, that Man is a greater name than President or King. 
Truth and goodness are equally precious, in whatever sphere they 
are found. Besides, men of all conditions sustain equally the 
relations, which give birth to the highest virtues and demand 
the highest powers. The laborer is not a mere laborer. He has 
close, tender, responsible connections with God and his fellow 
creatures. He is a son, husband, father, friend and Christian; 
He belongs to a home, a country, a church, a race ; and is such 
a man to be cultivated only for a trade ? Was he not sent into 



23 



the world for a great work 1 To educate a child perfectly re- 
quires profounder thought, greater wisdom, than to govern a 
state ; and for this plain reason, that the interests and wants of 
the latter are more superficial, coarser, and more obvious, than 
the spiritual capacities, the growth of thought and feeling, and 
the subtle laws of the mind, which must all be studied and com- 
prehended, before the work of education can be thoroughly 
performed ; and yet to all conditions this greatest work on earth 
is equally committed by God. What plainer proof do we need 
that a higher culture, than has yet been dreamt of, is needed by 
our whole race. 

II. I now proceed to inquire into the Means by which the 
self-culture, just described, may be promoted ; and here I know 
not where to begin. The subject is so extensive, as well as im- 
portant, that I feel myself unable to do any justice to it, espec- 
ially in the limits to which I am confined. I beg you to con- 
sider me as presenting but hints, and such as have offered them- 
selves with very little research to my own mind. 

And, first, the great means of self-culture, that which includes 
all the rest, is to fasten on this culture as our Great End, to de- 
termine deliberately and solemnly, that we will make the most 
and the best of the powers which God has given us. Without 
this resolute purpose, the best means are worth little, and with 
it the poorest become mighty. You may see thousands, with 
every opportunity of improvement which wealth can gather, 
with teachers, libraries, and apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, 
and others, with few helps, doing wonders; and simply because 
the latter are in earnest, and the former not. A man in earnest 
finds means, or, if he cannot find, creates them. A vigorous 
purpose makes much out of little, breathes power into weak 
•instruments, disarms difficulties, and even turns them into assis- 
tances. Every condition has means of progress, if we have 
spirit enough to use them. Some volumes have recently been 



24 



published, giving examples or histories of " knowledge acquired 
under difficulties ; " and it is most animating to see in these 
what a resolute man can do for himself. A great idea, like this 
of Self-culture, if seized on clearly and vigorously, burns like a 
living coal in the soul. He who deliberately adopts a great end, 
has, by this act, half accomplished it, has scaled the chief bar- 
rier to success. 

One thing is essential to the strong purpose of self-culture 
now insisted on, namely, faith in the practicableness of this cul- 
ture. A great object, to awaken resolute choice, must be seen 
to be within our reach. The truth, that progress is the very 
end of our being, must not be received as a tradition, but com- 
prehended and felt as a reality. Our minds are apt to pine and 
starve, by being imprisoned within what we have already at- 
tained. A true faith, looking up to something better, catching 
glimpses of a distant perfection, prophesying to ourselves im- 
provements proportioned to our conscientious labors, gives en- 
ergy of purpose, gives wings to the soul ; and this faith will con- 
tinually grow, by acquainting ourselves with our own nature, 
and with the promises of divine help and immortal life which 
abound in revelation. 

Some are discouraged from proposing to themselves improve- 
ment, by the false notion, that the study of books, which their 
situation denies them, is the all important, and only sufficient 
means. Let such consider, that the grand volumes, of which all 
our books are transcripts, I mean, nature, revelation, the human 
soul, and human life, are freely unfolded to every eye. The 
great sources of wisdom are experience and observation ; and 
these are denied to none. To open and fix our eyes upon what 
passes without and within us, is the most fruitful study. Books 
are chiefly useful, as they help us to interpret what we see and 
experience. When they absorb men, as they sometimes do, and 
turn them from observation of nature and life, they generate a 
learned folly, for which the plain sense of the laborer could not 



25 

be exchanged but at great loss. It deserves attention that the 
greatest men have been formed without the studies, which at 
present are thought by many most needful to improvement. 
Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, never heard the name of chemis- 
try, and knew less of the solar system, than a boy in our com- 
mon schools. Not that these sciences are unimportant ; but the 
lesson is, that human improvement never wants the means, where 
the purpose of it is deep and earnest in the soul. 

The purpose of self-culture, this is the life and strength of all 
the methods we use for our own elevation. I reiterate this princi- 
ple on account of its great importance ; and I would add a remark 
to prevent its misapprehension. When 1 speak of the purpose 
of self-culture, 1 mean, that it should be sincere. In other 
words, we must make self-culture really and truly our end, or 
choose it for its own sake, and not merely as a means or instru- 
ment of something else. And here I touch a common and very 
pernicious error. Not a few persons desire to improve them- 
selves only to get property and to rise in the world ; but such do 
not properly choose improvement, but something outward and 
foreign to themselves ; and so low an impulse can produce only 
a stinted, partial, uncertain growth. A man, as I have said, is 
to cultivate himself because he is a man. He is to start with the 
conviction, that there is something greater within him than in 
the whole material creation, than in all the worlds which press 
on the eye and ear ; and that inward improvements have a worth 
and dignity in themselves, quite distinct from the power they 
give over outward things. Undoubtedly a man is to labor to 
better his condition, but first to better himself. If he knows no 
higher use of his mind than to invent and drudge for his body, 
his case is desperate as far as culture is concerned. 

In these remarks, I do not mean to recommend to the laborer 
indifference to his outward lot. I hold it important, that every 
man in every class should possess the means of comfort, of health, 
3 



26 



of neatness in food and apparel, and of occasional retirement and 
leisure. These are good in themselves, to be sought for their 
own sakes, and still more, they are important means of the self- 
culture for which I am pleading. A clean, comfortable dwelling, 
with wholesome meals, is no small aid to intellectual and moral 
progress. A man living in a damp cellar or a garret open to rain 
and snow, breathing the foul air of a filthy room, and striving 
without success to appease hunger on scanty or unsavoury food, 
is in danger of abandoning himself to a desperate, selfish reck- 
lessness. Improve then your lot. Multiply comforts, and still 
more get wealth if you can by honorable means, and if it do not 
cost too much. A true cultivation of the mind is fitted to for- 
ward you in your worldly concerns, and you ought to use it for 
this end. Only, beware, lest this end master you ; lest your mo- 
tives sink as your condition improves ; lest you fall victims to the 
miserable passion of vying with those around you in show, luxury 
and expense. Cherish a true respect for yourselves. Feel that 
your nature is worth more than every thing which is foreign to 
you. He who has not caught a glimpse of his own rational and 
spiritual being, of something within himself superior to the world 
and allied to the divinity, wants the true spring of that purpose 
of self-culture, on which I have insisted as the first of all the 
means of improvement. 

I proceed to another important means of Self-culture, and this 
is the control of the animal appetites. To raise the moral and 
intellectual nature, we must put down the animal. Sensuality 
is the abyss in which very many souls are plunged and lost. 
Among the most prosperous classes, what a vast amount of intel- 
lectual life is drowned in luxurious excesses. It is one great 
curse of wealth, that it is used to pamper the senses ; and among 
the poorer classes, though luxury is wanting, yet a gross feeding 
often prevails, under which the spirit is whelmed. It is a sad 
sight to walk through our streets, and to see how many counte- 



27 



nances bear marks of a lethargy and a brutal coarseness, induced 
by unrestrained indulgence. Whoever would cultivate the soul, 
must restrain the appetites, I am not an advocate for the doc- 
trine, that animal food was not meant for man ; but that this is 
used among us to excess, that as a people we should gain m uch 
in cheerfulness, activity, and buoyancy of mind, by less gross and 
stimulating food, I am strongly inclined to believe. Above all, 
let me urge on those, who would bring out and elevate their 
higher nature, to abstain from the use of spirituous liquors. This 
bad habit is distinguished from all others by the ravages it makes 
on the reason, the intellect ; and this effect is produced to a 
mournful extent, even when drunkenness is escaped. Not a few 
men, called temperate, and who have thought themselves such, 
have learned, on abstaining from the use of ardent spirits, that 
for years their minds had been clouded, impaired by moderate 
drinking, without their suspecting the injury. Multitudes in this 
city are bereft of half their intellectual energy, by a degree of in- 
dulgence which passes for innocent. Of all the foes of the 
working class, this is the deadliest. Nothing has done more to 
keep down this class, to destroy their self-respect, to rob them of 
their just influence in the community, to render profitless the 
means of improvement within their reach, than the use of ardent 
spirits as a drink. They are called on to withstand this practice, 
as they regard their honor, and would take their just place in 
society. They are under solemn obligations to give their sanc- 
tion to every effort for its suppression. They ought to regard as 
their worst enemies, (though unintentionally such,) as the ene- 
mies of their rights, dignity, and influence, the men who desire to 
flood city and country with distilled poison. I lately visited a 
flourishing village, and on expressing to one of the respected 
inhabitants the pleasure I felt in witnessing so many signs of 
progress, he replied, that one of the causes of the prosperity I 
witnessed, was the disuse of ardent spirits by the people. And 
this reformation we may be assured wrought something higher 



28 



than outward prosperity. In almost every family so improved, 
we cannot doubt that the capacities of the parent for intellectual 
and moral improvement were enlarged, and the means of educa- 
tion made more effectual to the child. I call on working men to 
take hold of the cause of temperance as peculiarly their cause. 
These remarks are the more needed, in consequence of the efforts 
made far and wide, to annul at the present moment a recent law 
for the suppression of the sale of ardent spirits in such quantities 
as favor intemperance. I know, that there are intelligent and 
good men, who believe, that, in enacting this law, government 
transcended its limits, left its true path, and established a 
precedent for legislative interference with all our pursuits and 
pleasures. No one here looks more jealously on government than 
myself. But I maintain, that this is a case which stands by itself, 
which can be confounded with no other, and on which govern- 
ment from its very nature and end is peculiarly bound to act. 
Let it never be forgotten, that the great end of government, its 
highest function, is, not to make roads, grant charters, originate 
improvements, but to prevent or repress Crimes against individual 
rights and social order. For this end it ordains a penal code, 
erects prisons, and inflicts fearful punishments. Now if it be 
true, that a vast proportion of the crimes, which government is 
instituted to prevent and repress, have their origin in the use of 
ardent spirits ; if our poor-houses, work-houses, jails and penir 
tentiaries are tenanted in a great degree by those, whose first and 
chief impulse to crime came from the distillery and dram-shop ; 
if murder and theft, the most fearful outrages on property and 
life, are most frequently the issues and consummation of intem- 
perance, is not government bound to restrain by legislation the 
vending of the stimulus to these terrible social wrongs? Is gov- 
ernment never to act as a parent, never to remove the causes or 
occasions of wrong doing ? Has it but one instrument for re- 
pressing crime, namely, public, infamous, punishment, an evil 
only inferior to crime ! Is government a usurper, does it wander 



29 



beyond its sphere, by imposing restraints on an article, which 
does no imaginable good, which can plead no benefit conferred 
on body or mind, which unfits the citizen for the discharge of his 
duty to his country, and which, above all, stirs up men to the 
perpetration of most of the crimes, from which it is the highest 
and most solemn office of government to protect society ? 

I come now to another important measure of self-culture, and 
this is, intercourse with superior minds. I have insisted on our 
own activity as essential to omr progress ; but we were not made 
to live or advance alone. Society is as needful to us as air or 
food. A child doomed to utter loneliness, growing up without 
sight or sound of human beings, would not put forth equal power 
with many brutes ; and a man, never brought into contact with 
minds superior to his own, will probably run one and the same 
dull round of thought and action to the end of life. 

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with supe- 
rior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in 
the reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give 
us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. 
God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant 
and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. 
Books are the true levellers. They give to all, who will faith- 
fully use them, the soeiety, the spiritual presence of the best and 
greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter 
though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure 
dwelling. If the Sacred Writers will enter and take up their 
abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing 
to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of 
imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin 
to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want 
of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated 
man though excluded from what is called the best society in the 
place where I live. 

*3 



so 

To make this means of culture effectual, a man must select 
good books, such as have been written by right-minded and 
strong-minded men, real thinkers, who instead of diluting by 
repetition what others say, have something to say for themselves, 
and write to give relief to full earnest souls ; and these works 
must not be skimmed over for amusement, but read with fixed 
attention and a reverential love of truth. In selecting books, 
we may be aided much by those who have studied more than 
ourselves. But, after all, it is best to be determined in this par- 
ticular a good deal by our own tastes. The best books for a 
man are not always those which the wise recommend, but of- 
tener those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of 
his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought. And 
here it may be well to observe, not only in regard to books but 
in other respects, that self-culture must vary with the individual. 
All means do not equally suit us all. A man must unfold him- 
self freely, and should respect the peculiar gifts or biasses by 
which nature has distinguished him from others. Self-culture 
does not demand the sacrifice of individuality. It does nor reg- 
ularly apply an established machinery, for the sake of torturing 
every man into one rigid shape, called perfection. As the hu- 
man countenance, with the same features in us all, is diversified 
without end in the race, and is never the same in any two indi- 
viduals, so the human soul, with the same grand powers and 
laws, expands into an infinite variety of forms, and would be 
wofully stinted by modes of culture requiring all men to learn 
the same lesson or to bend to the same rules. 

I know how hard it is to some men, especially to those who 
spend much time in manual labor, to fix attention on books. 
Let them strive to overcome the difficulty, by choosing subjects 
of deep interest, or by reading in company with those whom 
they love. Nothing can supply the place of books. They are 
cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. 
The wealth of both continents would be no equivalent for the 



31 



good they impart. Let every man, if possible, gather some good 
books under his roof, and obtain access for himself and family 
to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed 
to this. 

One of the very interesting features of our times, is the multi- 
plication of books, and their distribution through all conditions 
of society. At a small expense, a man can now possess himself 
of the most precious treasures of English literature. Books, 
once confined to a few by their costliness, are now accessible to 
the multitude; and in this way a change of habits is going on in 
society, highly favorable to the culture of the people. Instead 
of depending on casual rumor and loose conversation for most 
of their knowledge and objects of thought ; instead of forming 
their judgments in crowds, and receiving their chief excitement 
from the voice of neighbors, men are now learning to study and 
reflect alone, to follow out subjects continuously, to determine 
for themselves what shall engage their minds, and to call to 
their aid the knowledge, original views, and reasonings of men 
of all countries and ages ; and the results must be, a deliberate- 
ness and independence of judgment, and a thoroughness and ex- 
tent of information, unknown in former times. The diffusion 
of these silent teachers, books, through the whole community, is 
to work greater effects than artillery, machinery, and legislation. 
Its peaceful agency is to supersede stormy revolutions. The 
culture, which it is to spread, whilst an unspeakable good to the 
individual, is also to become the stability of nations. 

Another important means of self-culture, is to free ourselves 
from the power of human opinion and example, except as far as 
this is sanctioned by our own deliberate judgment. We are all 
prone to keep the level of those we live with, to repeat their 
words, and dress our minds as well as bodies after their fashion ; 
and hence the spiritless tameness of our characters and lives. 
Our greatest danger, is not from the grossly wicked around us, 



32 

but from the worldly, unreflecting multitude, who are borne 
along as a stream by foreign impulse, and bear us along with 
them. Even the influence of superior minds may harm us, by 
bowing us to servile acquiescence and damping our spiritual 
activity. The great use of intercourse with other minds, is to 
stir up our own, to whet our appetite for truth, to carry our 
thoughts beyond their old tracks. We need connexions with 
great thinkers to make us thinkers too. One of the chief arts 
of self-culture, is to unite the childlike teachableness, which 
gratefully welcomes light from every human being who can 
give it, with manly resistance of opinions however current, of 
influences however generally revered, which do not approve 
themselves to our deliberate judgment. You ought indeed pa- 
tiently and conscientiously to strengthen your reason by other 
men's intelligence, but you must not prostrate it before them. 
Especially if there springs up within you any view of God's 
word or universe, any sentiment or aspiration, which seems to 
you of a higher order than what you meet abroad, give reverent 
heed to it ; enquire into it earnestly, solemnly. Do not trust it 
blindly, for it may be an illusion ; but it may be the Divinity 
moving within you, a new revelation, not supernatural but still 
most precious, of truth or duty ; and if after enquiry it so ap- 
pear, then let no clamor, or scorn, or desertion turn you from 
it. Be true to your own highest convictions. Intimations from 
our own souls of something more perfect than others teach, if 
faithfully followed, give us a consciousness of spiritual force and 
progress, never experienced by the vulgar of high life or low 
life, who march, as they are drilled, to the step of their times. 

Some, I know, will wonder, that I should think the mass of 
the people capable of such intimations and glimpses of truth, as 
I have just supposed. These are commonly thought to be the 
prerogative of men of genius, who seem to be born to give law 
to the minds of the multitude. Undoubtedly nature has her no- 
bility, and sends forth a few to be eminently " lights of the 



33 



world. " But it is also true that a portion of the same divine 
fire is given to all ; for the many could not receive with a loving 
reverence the quickening influences of the few, were there not 
essentially the same spiritual life in both. The minds of the 
multitude are not masses of passive matter, created to receive 
impressions unresistingly from abroad. They are not wholly 
shaped by foreign instruction ; but have a native force, a spring 
of thought in themselves. Even the child's mind outruns its 
lessons, and overflows in questionings which bring the wisest to 
a stand. Even the child starts the great problems, which phi- 
losophy has labored to solve for ages. But on this subject I 
cannot now enlarge. Let me only say, that the power of origi- 
nal thought is particularly manifested in those, who thirst for 
progress, who are bent on unfolding their whole nature. A 
man who wakes up to the consciousness of having been created 
for progress and perfection, looks with new eyes on himself and 
on the world in which he lives. This great truth stirs the soul 
from its depths, breaks up old associations of ideas, and estab- 
lishes new ones, just as a mighty agent of chemistry, brought 
into contact with natural substances, dissolves the old affinities 
which had bound their particles together, and arranges them 
anew. This truth particularly aids us to penetrate the myste- 
ries of human life. By revealing to us the end of our being, it 
helps us to comprehend more and more the wonderful, the infi- 
nite system, to which we belong. A man in the common walks 
of life, who has faith in perfection, in the unfolding of the hu- 
man spirit, as the great purpose of God, possesses more the se- 
cret of the universe, perceives more the harmonies or mutual 
adaptations of the world without and the world within him, is a 
wiser interpreter of Providence, and reads nobler lessons of duty 
in the events which pass before him, than the profoundest phi- 
losopher who wants this grand central truth. Thus illumina- 
tions, inward suggestions, are not confined to a favored iew } but 
visit all who devote themselves to a generous self-culture. 



34 



Another means of Self-culture may be found by every man in 
his Condition or Occupation, be it what it may. Had I time, I 
might go through all conditions of life, from the most conspicu- 
ous to the most obscure, and might show how each furnishes 
continual aids to improvement. But I will take one example, 
and that is, of a man living by manual labor. This may be 
made the means of Self-culture. For instance, in almost all la- 
bor, a man exchanges his strength for an equivalent in the form 
of wages, purchase-money, or some other product. In other 
words, labor is a system of contracts, bargains, imposing mutual 
obligations. Now the man, who, in working, no matter in what 
way, strives perpetually to fulfil his obligations thoroughly, to do 
his whole work faithfully, to be honest not because honesty is 
the best policy, but for the sake of justice, and that he may ren- 
der to every man his due, such a laborer is continually building 
up in himself one of the greatest principles of morality and reli- 
gion. Every blow on the anvil, on the earth, or whatever ma- 
terial he works upon, contributes something to the perfection of 
his nature. 

Nor is this all. Labor is a school of benevolence as well as 
justice. A man to support himself must serve others. He 
must do or produce something for their comfort or gratification. 
This is one of the beautiful ordinations of Providence, that, to 
get a living, a man must be useful. Now this usefulness ought 
to be an end in his labor as truly as to earn his living. He 
ought to think of the benefit of those he works for, as well as of 
his own ; and in so doing, in desiring amidst his sweat and toil 
to serve others as well as himself, he is exercising and growing 
in benevolence, as truly as if he were distributing bounty with 
a large hand to the poor. Such a motive hallows and dignifies 
the commonest pursuit. It is strange, that laboring men do not 
think more of the vast usefulness of their toils, and take a be- 
nevolent pleasure in them on this account. This beautiful city, 
with its houses, furniture, markets, public walks, and number- 



35 



less accommodations, has grown up under the hands of artizans 
and other laborers, and ought they not to take a disinterested 
joy in their work? One would think, that a carpenter or mason, 
on passing a house which he had reared, would say to himself, 
" this work of mine is giving comfort and enjoyment every day 
and hour to a family, and will continue to be a kindly shelter, a 
domestic gathering-place, an abode of affection, for a century or 
more after I sleep in the dust;" and ought not a generous satis- 
faction to spring up at the thought? It is by thus interweaving 
goodness with common labors, that we give it strength and 
make it a habit of the soul. 

Again. Labor may be so performed as to be a high impulse 
to the mind. Be a man's vocation what it may, his rule should 
be to do its duties perfectly, to do the best he can, and thus to 
make perpetual progress in his art. In other words, Perfection 
should be proposed ; and this I urge not only for its usefulness 
to society, nor for the sincere pleasure which a man takes in 
seeing a work well done. This is an important means of Self- 
culture. In this way the idea of Perfection takes root in the 
mind, and spreads far beyond the man's trade. He gets a ten- 
dency towards completeness in whatever he undertakes. Slack, 
slovenly performance in any department of life is more apt to 
offend him. His standard of action rises, and every thing is 
better done for his thoroughness in his common vocation. 

There is one circumstance attending all conditions of life, 
which may and ought to be turned to the use of self-culture. 
Every condition, be it what it may, has hardships, hazards, 
pains. We try to escape them ; we pine fot a sheltered lot, for 
a smooth path, for cheeing friends, and unbroken success. But 
providence ordains storms, disasters, hostilities, sufferings ; and 
the great question, whether we shall live to any purpose or not, 
whether we shall grow strong in mind and heart, or be weak 
and pitiable, depends on nothing so much as on our use of these 
adverse circumstances. Outward evils are designed to school 



36 

our passions, and to rouse our faculties and virtues into intenser 
action. Sometimes they seem to create new powers. Difficulty 
is the element, and resistance the true work of a man. Self- 
culture never goes on so fast, as when embarrassed circum- 
stances, the opposition of men or the elements, unexpected 
changes of the times, or other forms of suffering, instead of dis- 
heartening, throw us on our inward resources, turn us for 
strength to God, clear up to us the great purpose of life, and 
inspire calm resolution. No greatness or goodness is worth 
much, unless tried in these fires. Hardships are not on this 
account to be sought for. They come fast enough of them- 
selves, and we are in more danger of sinking under, than of 
needing them. But when God sends them, they are noble 
means of self-culture, and as such, let us meet and bear them 
cheerfully. Thus all parts of our condition may be pressed into 
the service of self-improvement. 

I have time to consider but one more means of self-culture. 
We find it in our Free Government, in our Political relations 
and duties. It is a great benefit of free institutions, that they 
do much to awaken and keep in action a nation's mind, We 
are told, that the education of the multitude is necessary to the 
support of a republic ; but it is equally true, that a republic is a 
powerful means of educating the multitude. It is the people's 
University. In a free state, solemn responsibilities are imposed 
on every citizen; great subjects are to be discussed; great inte- 
rests to be decided. The individual is called to determine mea- 
sures affecting the well-being of millions and the destinies of 
posterity. He must consider not only the internal relations of 
his native land, but its connexion with foreign states, and judge 
of a policy which touches the whole civilized world. He is 
called by his participation in the national sovereignty, to cherish 
public spirit, a regard to the general weal. A man who purposes 
to discharge faithfully these obligations, is carrying on a gene- 



37 

rous self-culture. The great public questions, which divide 
opinion around him and provoke earnest discussion, of necessi* 
ty invigorate his intellect, and accustom him to look beyond him- 
self. He grows up to a robustness, force, enlargement of mind, 
unknown under despotic rule. 

It may be said that I am describing what free institutions 
ought to do for the character of the individual, not their actual 
effects ; and the objection, I must own, is too true. Our insti- 
tutions do not cultivate us, as they might and should ; and the 
chief cause of the failure is plain. It is the strength of party 
spirit ; and so blighting is its influence, so fatal to self-culture, 
that I feel myself bound to warn every man against it, who has 
any desire of improvement. I do not tell you it will destroy your 
country. It wages a worse war against yourselves. Truth, 
justice, candor, fair dealing, sound judgment, self-control, and 
kind affections are its natural and perpetual prey. 

I do not say, that you must take no side in politics. The 
parties which prevail around you differ in character, principles, 
and spirit, though far less than the exaggeration of passion 
affirms ; and, as far as conscience allows, a man should support 
that, which he thinks best. In one respect, however, all parties 
agree. They all foster that pestilent spirit, which I now con- 
demn. In all of them, party spirit rages. Associate men 
together for a common cause, be it good or bad, and array against 
them a body resolutely pledged to an opposite interest, and a new 
passion, quite distinct from the original sentiment which brought 
them together, a fierce, fiery zeal, consisting chiefly of aversion 
to those who differ from them, is roused within them into fear- 
ful activity. Human nature seems incapable of a stronger, more 
unrelenting passion. It is hard enough for an individual, when 
contending all alone for an interest or an opinion, to keep down 
his pride, wilfulness, love of victory, anger and other personal 
feelings. But let him join a multitude in the same warfare, and, 
without singular self-control, he receives into his single breast 

4 



38 

the vehemence, obstinacy and vindictiveness of all, The tri- 
umph of his party becomes immeasurably dearer to him than the 
principle, true or false, which was the original ground of divi- 
sion. The conflict becomes a struggle not for principle but for 
power, for victory ; and the desperateness, the wickedness of 
such struggles, is the great burden of history. In truth, it mat- 
ters little what men divide about, whether it be a foot of land or 
precedence in a procession. Let them but begin to fight for it, 
and self-will, ill-will, the rage for victory, the dread of mortifica- 
tion and defeat, make the trifle as weighty as a matter of life 
and death. The Greek or Eastern empire was shaken to its 
foundation by parties, which differed only about the merits of 
charioteers at the amphitheatre. Party spirit is singularly hostile 
to moral independence. A man, in proportion as he drinks into 
it, sees, hears, judges by the senses and understandings of his 
party. He surrenders the freedom of a man, the right of using 
and speaking his own mind, and echoes the applauses or male- 
dictions, with which the leaders or passionate partizans see fit 
that the country should ring. On all points parties are to be 
distrusted ; but on no one so much as on the character of oppo- 
nents. These, if you may trust what you hear, are always men 
without principle and truth, devoured by selfishness, and thirsting 
for their own elevation, though on their country's ruin. When 
I was young, I was accustomed to hear pronounced with abhor- 
rence, almost with execration, the names of men, who are now 
hailed by their former foes as the champions of grand principles 
and as worthy of the highest public trusts. This lesson of early 
experience, which later years have corroborated, will never be 
forgotten. 

Of our present political divisions I have of course nothing to 
say. But among the current topics of party, there are certain 
accusations and recriminations, grounded on differences of social 
condition, which seem to me so unfriendly to the improvement 
of individuals and the community, that I ask the privilege of 



39 

giving them a moment's notice. On one side we are told, that 
the rich are disposed to trample on the poor ; and on the other, 
that the poor look with evil eye and hostile purpose on the pos- 
sessions of the rich. These outcries seem to me alike devoid of 
truth and alike demoralizing. As for the rich, who constitute 
but a handful of our population, who possess not one peculiar 
privilege, and, what is more, who possess comparatively little of 
the property of the country, it is wonderful, that they should be 
objects of alarm. The vast and ever-growing property of this 
country, where is it ? Locked up in a few hands ? hoarded in a 
few strong boxes? It is diffused like the atmosphere, and almost 
as variable, changing hands with the seasons, shifting from rich 
to poor, not by the violence but by the industry and skill of the 
latter class. The wealth of the rich is as a drop in the ocean ; 
and it is a well known fact, that those men among us, who are 
noted for their opulence, exert hardly any political power on the 
community. That the rich do their whole duty ; that they 
adopt, as they should, the great object of the social state, which 
is the elevation of the people in intelligence, character, and con- 
dition, cannot be pretended ; but that they feel for the physical 
sufferings of their brethren, that they stretch out liberal hands 
for the succor of the poor and for the support of useful public 
institutions, cannot be denied. Among them are admirable spe- 
cimens of humanity. There is no warrant for holding them up 
to suspicion as the people's foes. 

Nor do I regard as less calumnious the outcry against the 
working classes, as if they were aiming at the subversion of 
property. When we think of the general condition and cha- 
racter of this part of our population, when we recollect, that they 
were born and have lived amidst schools and churches, that they 
have been brought up to profitable industry, that they enjoy many 
of the accommodations of life, that most of them hold a measure 
of property and are hoping for more, that they possess unprece- 
dented means of bettering their lot, that they are bound to com- 



40 



fortable homes by strong domestic affections, that they are able 
to give their children an education which places within their 
reach the prizes of the social state, that they are trained to the 
habits, and familiarized to the advantages of a high civilization ; 
when we recollect these things, can we imagine that they are so 
insanely blind to their interests, so deaf to the calls of justice 
and religion, so profligately thoughtless of the peace and safety 
of their families, as to be prepared to make a wreck of social 
order, for the sake of dividing among themselves the spoils of 
the rich, which would not support the community for a month. 
Undoubtedly there is insecurity in all stages of society,, and sa 
there must be, until communities shall be regenerated by a 
higher culture, reaching and quickening all classes of the people : 
but there is not, I believe, a spot on earth, where property is 
safer than here, because, no where else is it so equally and right- 
eously diffused. In aristocracies, where wealth exists in enormous 
masses, which have been entailed for ages by a partial legisla- 
tion on a favored few, and where the multitude, after the sleep of 
ages, are waking up to intelligence, to self-respect, and to a 
knowledge of their rights, property is exposed to shocks which 
are not to be dreaded among ourselves. Here indeed as else- 
where, among the less prosperous members of the community, 
there are disappointed, desperate men, ripe for tumult and civil 
strife ; but it is also true, that the most striking and honorable 
distinction of this country is to be found in the intelligence, cha- 
racter and condition of the great working class. To me it seems r 
that the great danger to property here is not from the laborer, 
but from those who are making haste to be rich. For example, 
in this commonwealth, no act has been thought by the alarmists 
or the conservatives so subversive of the rights of property, as 
a recent law, authorizing a company to construct a free bridge, 
in the immediate neighborhood of another, which had been 
chartered by a former legislature, and which had been erected in 
the expectation of an exclusive right. And with whom did this 



41 



alleged assault on property originate? With levellers? with 
needy laborers ? with men bent on the prostration of the rich ? 
No ; but with men of business, who were anxious to push a more 
lucrative trade, Again, what occurrence among us has been 
so suited to destroy confidence, and to stir up the people against 
the monied class, as the late criminal mismanagement of some of 
our banking institutions. And whence came this ? from the 
rich or the poor? From the agrarian, or the man of business? 
Who, let me ask, carry on the work of spoliation most exten- 
sively in society ? Is not more property wrested from its owners 
by rash or dishonest failures, than by professed highwaymen and 
thieves ? Have not a few unprincipled speculators sometimes 
inflicted wider wrongs and sufferings, than all the tenants of a 
state prison ? Thus property is in more danger from those who 
are aspiring after wealth, than from those who live by the sweat 
of their brow. I do not believe, however, that the institution is 
in serious danger from either. AH the advances of society in 
industry, useful arts, commerce, knowledge, jurisprudence, fra- 
ternal union, and practical Christianity, are so many hedges 
round honestly acquired wealth, so many barriers against revo- 
lutionary violence and rapacity. Let us not torture ourselves 
with idle alarms, and still more let us not inflame ourselves 
against one another by mutual calumnies. Let not class array 
itself against class, where all have a common interest. One 
way of provoking men to crime is to suspect them of criminal 
designs. We do not secure our property against the poor, by 
accusing them of schemes of universal robbery ; nor render the 
rich better friends of the community, by fixing on them the brand 
of hostility to the people. Of all parties, those founded on dif- 
ferent social conditions are the most pernicious ; and in no 
country on earth are they so groundless as in our own. 

Among the best people, especially among the more religious, 
there are some, who, through disgust with the violence and frauds 
of parties, withdraw themselves from all political action. Such, 



42 

I conceive, do wrong. God has placed them in the relations, 
and imposed on them the duties of citizens ; and they are no 
more authorized to shrink from these duties than from those of 
sons, husbands, or fathers. They owe a great debt to their 
country, and must discharge it by giving support to what they 
deem the best men and the best measures. Nor let them say, 
that they can do nothing. Every good man, if faithful to his 
convictions, benefits his country. All parties are kept in check 
by the spirit of the better portion of people, whom they contain. 
Leaders are always compelled to ask what their party will bear, 
and to modify their measures, so as not to shock the men of 
principle within their ranks. A good man, not tamely subser- 
vient to the body with which he acts, but judging it impartially, 
criticising it freely, bearing testimony against its evils, and with- 
holding his support from wrong, does good to those around him, 
and is cultivating generously his own mind. 

I respectfully counsel those, whom I address, to take part in 
the politics of their country. These are the true discipline of a 
people, and do much for their education. I counsel you to la- 
bor for a clear understanding of the subjects which agitate the 
community, to make them your study, instead of wasting your 
leisure in vague, passionate talk about them. The time, thrown 
away by the mass of the people on the rumors of the day, might, 
if better spent, give them a good acquaintance with the consti- 
tution, laws, history and interests of their country, and thus es- 
tablish them in those great principles by which particular mea- 
sures are to be determined. In proportion as the people thus 
improve themselves, they will cease to be the tools of designing 
politicians. Their intelligence, not their passions and jeal- 
ousies, will be addressed by those who seek their votes. They 
will exert, not a nominal, but a real influence on the govern- 
ment and the destinies of the country, and at the same time will 
forward their own growth in truth and virtue. 

I ought not to quit this subject of politics, considered as a 



43 



means of self-culture, without speaking of newspapers ; because 
these form the chief reading of the bulk of the people. They 
. are the literature of multitudes. Unhappily their importance is 
not understood ; their bearing on the intellectual and moral cul- 
tivation of the community, little thought of. A newspaper 
ought to be conducted by one of our most gifted men, and its 
income should be such as to enable him to secure the contribu- 
tions of men as gifted as himself. But we must take newspapers 
as they are ; and a man, anxious for self-culture, may turn them 
to account, if he will select the best within his reach. He 
should exclude from his house such as are venomous or scurri- 
lous, as he would a pestilence. He should be swayed in his 
choice, not merely by the ability with which a paper is con- 
ducted, but still more by its spirit, by its justice, fairness and 
steady adherence to great principles. Especially, if he would 
know the truth, let him hear both sides. Let him read the de- 
fence as well as the attack. Let him not give his ear to one 
party exclusively. We condemn ourselves, when we listen to 
reproaches thrown on an individual and turn away from his ex- 
culpation ; and is it just to read continual, unsparing invective 
against large masses of men, and refuse them the opportunity of 
justifying themselves ? 

A new class of daily papers has sprung up in our country, 
sometimes called cent papers, and designed for circulation 
among those who cannot afford costlier publications. My inte- 
rest in the working class induced me sometime ago to take one 
of these, and I was gratified to find it not wanting in useful mat- 
ter. Two things however gave me pain. The advertising col- 
umns w r ere devoted very much to patent medicines ; and when I 
considered that a laboring man's whole fortune is his health, I 
could not but lament, that so much was dorife to seduce him to 
the use of articles, more fitted, I fear, to undermine than to re- 
store his constitution. I was also shocked by accounts of trials 
in the police court. These were written in a style adapted to 



♦ 44 

the most uncultivated minds, and intended to turn into matters 
of sport the most painful and humiliating events of life. Were 
the newspapers of the rich to attempt to extract amusement from 
the vices and miseries of the poor, a cry would be raised against 
them, and very justly. But is it not something worse, that the 
poorer classes themselves should seek occasions of laughter and 
merriment in the degradation, the crimes, the woes, the punish- 
ments of their brethren, of those who are doomed to bear like 
themselves the heaviest burdensr of life, and who have sunk un- 
der the temptations of poverty ? Better go to the hospital, and 
laugh over the wounds and writhings of the sick or the ravings 
of the insane, than amuse ourselves with brutal excesses and 
infernal passions, which not only expose the criminal to the 
crushing penalties of human laws, but incur the displeasure of 
Heaven, and, if not repented of, will be followed by the fearful 
retribution of the life to come. 

One important topic remains. That great means of self-im- 
provement, Christianity, is yet untouched, and its greatness for- 
bids me now to approach it. I will only say, that if you study 
Christianity in its original records and not in human creeds ; if 
you consider its clear revelations of God, its life-giving prom- 
ises of pardon and spiritual strength, its correspondence to man's 
reason, conscience and best affections, and its adaptation to his 
wants, sorrows, anxieties and fears ; if you consider the strength 
of its proofs, the purity of its precepts, the divine greatness of 
the character of its author, and the immortality which it opens 
before us, you will feel yourselves bound to welcome it joyfully, 
gratefully, as affording aids and incitements to self-culture, 
which would vainly be sought in all other means. 

I have thus presented a few of the means of self-culture. 
The topics, now discussed, will I hope suggest others to those 
who have honored me with their attention, and create an interest 
which will extend beyond the present hour. I owe it however 



45 

to truth to make one remark. I wish to raise no unreasonable 
hopes. I must say then, that the means, now recommended to 
you, though they will richly reward every man of every age who 
will faithfully use them, will yet not produce their full and hap- 
piest effect, except in cases where early education has prepared 
the mind for future improvement. They, whose childhood has 
been neglected, though they may make progress in future life, 
can hardly repair the loss of their first years ; and I say this, 
that we may all be excited to save our children from this loss 5 
that we may prepare them, to the extent of our power, for an 
effectual use of all the means of self-culture, which adult age 
may bring with it. With these views, I ask you to look with 
favor on the recent exertions of our legislature and of private 
citizens, in behalf of our public schools, the chief hope of our 
country. The legislature has of late appointed a board of edu- 
cation, with a secretary, who is to devote his whole time to the 
improvement of public schools. An individual more fitted to 
this responsible office, than the gentleman who now fills it,* 
cannot, I believe, be found in our community ; and if his labors 
shall be crowned with success, he will earn a title to the grati- 
tude of the good people of this State, unsurpassed by that of any 
other living citizen. Let me also recall to your minds a munifi- 
cent individual^ who, by a generous donation, has encouraged 
the legislature to resolve on the establishment of one or more 
institutions called Normal Schools, the object of which is, to 
prepare accomplished teachers of youth, a work, on which the 
progress of education depends more than on any other measure. 
The efficient friends of education are the true benefactors of 
their country, and their names deserve to be handed down to 
that posterity, for whose highest wants they are generously pro- 
viding. 

There is another mode of advancing education in our whole 
country, to which I ask your particular attention. You are 

* Horace Mann, Esq. f Edmund Dwight, Esq. 



46 



aware of the vast extent and value of the public lands of the 
Union. By annual sales of these, large amounts of money are 
brought into the national treasury, which are applied to the cur- 
rent expenses of the Government. For this application there is 
no need. In truth, the country has received detriment from the 
excess of its revenues. Now, I ask, why shall not the public 
lands be consecrated, (in whole or in part, as the case may re- 
quire,) to the education of the people 1 This measure would 
secure at once what the country most needs, that is, able, ac- 
complished, quickening teachers of the whole rising generation. 
The present poor remuneration of instructers is a dark omen, 
and the only real obstacle which the cause of education has to 
contend with. We need for our schools gifted men and -women, 
worthy, by their intelligence and their moral power, to be en- 
trusted with a nation's youth ; and to gain these we must pay 
them liberally, as well as afford other proofs of the consideration 
in which we hold them. In the present state of the country, 
when so many paths of wealth and promotion are opened, supe- 
rior men cannot be won to an office so responsible and laborious 
as that of teaching, without stronger inducements than are now 
offered, except in some of our large cities. The office of in- 
structer ought to rank and be recompensed as one of the most 
honorable in society ; and I see not how this is to be done, at 
least in our day, without appropriating to it the public domain. 
This is the people's property, and the only part of their property 
which is likely to be soon devoted to the support of a high order 
of institutions for public education. This object, interesting to 
all classes of society, has peculiar claims on those, whose means 
of improvement are restricted by narrow circumstances. The 
mass of the people should devote themselves to it as one man, 
should toil for it with one soul. Mechanics, Farmers, Laborers ! 
Let the country echo with your united cry, " The Public Lands 
for Education." Send to the public councils men w T ho will 
plead this cause with power. No party triumphs, no trades-* 



47 



unions, no associations, can so contribute to elevate you as the 
measure now proposed. Nothing but a higher education can 
raise you in influence and true dignity. The resources of the 
public domain, wisely applied for successive generations to the 
culture of society and of the individual, would create a new peo- 
ple, would awaken through this community intellectual and 
moral energies, such as the records of no country display, and 
as would command the respect and emulation of the civilized 
world. In this grand object, the working men of all parties, 
and in all divisions of the land, should join with an enthusiasm 
not to be withstood. They should separate it from all narrow 
and local strifes. They should not suffer it to be mixed up with 
the schemes of politicians. In it, they and their children have 
an infinite stake. May they be true to themselves, to posterity, 
to their country, to freedom, to the cause of mankind. 

III. I am aware that the whole doctrine of this discourse 
will meet opposition. There are not a few who will say to me, 
" What you tell us sounds well; but it is impracticable. Men, 
who dream in their closets, spin beautiful theories ; but actual 
life scatters them, as the wind snaps the cobweb. You would 
have all men to be cultivated ; but necessity wills that most men 
shall work; and which of the two is likely to prevail 1 A weak 
sentimentality may shrink from the truth ; still it is true, that 
most men were made, not for selkculture, but for toil." 

I have put the objection into strong language, that we may 
all look it fairly in the face. For one I deny its validity. Rea- 
son as well as sentiment rises up against it. The presumption 
is certainly very strong, that the All-wise Father, who has given 
to every human being, reason and conscience and affection, 
intended that these should be unfolded ; and it is hard to be- 
lieve, that He, who, by conferring this nature on all men, has 
made all his children, has destined the great majority to wear 
out a life of drudgery and unimproving toil, for the benefit of a 



48 

few. God cannot have made spiritual beings to be dwarfed. 
In the body we see no organs created to shrivel by disuse ; 
much less are the powers of the soul given to be locked up in 
perpetual lethargy. 

Perhaps it will be replied, that the purpose of the Creator is to 
be gathered, not from theory, but from facts ; and that it is a 
plain fact, that the order and prosperity of society, which God 
must be supposed to intend, require from the multitude the ac- 
tion of their hand and not the improvement of their minds. 1 
reply, that a social order, demanding the sacrifice of the mind, 
is very suspicious, that it cannot indeed be sanctioned by the 
Creator. Were I, on visiting a strange country, to see the vast 
majority of the people maimed, crippled, and bereft of sight, and 
were I told that social order required this mutilation, I should 
say, Perish this order. Who would not think his understanding 
as well as best feelings insulted, by hearing this spoken of as the 
intention of God. Nor ought we to look with less aversion on a 
social system, which can only be upheld by crippling and blind- 
ing the Minds of the people. 

But to come nearer to the point. Are labor and self-culture 
irreconcilable to each other. In the first place, we have seen 
that a man, in the midst of labor, may and ought to give himself 
to the most important improvements, that he may cultivate his 
sense of justice, his benevolence, and the desire of perfection. 
Toil is the school for these high principles; and we have here a 
strong presumption, that, in other respects, it does not necessa- 
rily blight the soul. Next we have seen, that the most fruitful 
sources of truth and wisdom are not books, precious as they are, 
but experience and observation ; and these belong to all condi- 
tions. It is another important consideration, that almost all 
labor demands intellectual activity, and is best carried on by 
those who invigorate their minds ; so that the two interests, toil 
and self-culture, are friends to each other. It is Mind, after all, 
which does the work of the world, so that the more there is of 



49 



mind, the* more work will be accomplished. A man, in propoT* 
tion as he is intelligent, makes a given force accomplish a greater 
task, makes skill take the place of muscles, and, with less labor, 
gives a better product. Make men intelligent and they become 
inventive. They find shorter processes. Their knowledge of 
nature helps them to turn its laws to account, to understand the 
substances on which they work, and to seize on useful hints, 
which experience continually furnishes. It is among workmen, 
that some of the most useful machines have been contrived. 
Spread education, and, as the history of this country shows, there 
will be no bounds to useful inventions. — We may lay it down as 
a truth, that men are made less efficient by being deprived of 
intellectual and moral culture. You think, that a man without 
mind will do all the better what you call the drudgery of life. 
Go then to the Southern plantation. There the slave is brought 
up to be a mere drudge. He is robbed of the rights of a man, 
his whole spiritual nature is starved, that he may work and do 
nothing but work : and in that slovenly agriculture, in that worn 
out soil, in the rude state of the mechanic arts, you may find a 
comment on you doctrine, that by degrading men you make them 
more productive laborers. 

But it is said, that any considerable education lifts men above 
their work, makes them look with disgust on their trades as 
mean and low, makes drudgery intolerable. I reply, that a man 
becomes interested in labor, just in proportion as the mind works 
with the hands. An enlightened farmer, who understands agri- 
cultural chemistry, the laws of vegetation, the structure of plants, 
the properties of manures, the influences of climate, who looks 
intelligently on his work and brings his knowledge to bear on 
exigencies, is a much more cheerful as well as more dignified 
laborer, than the peasant, whose mind is akin to the clod on 
which he treads, and whose whole life is the same dull, unthink- 
ing, unimproving toil. But this is not all. Why is it, I ask, 
that we call manual labor low, that we associate with it the idea 
5 



50 

of meanness, and think that an intelligent people must scorn it? 
The great reason is, that, in most countries, so few intelligent 
people have been engaged in it. Once let cultivated men plough 
and dig and follow the commonest labors, and ploughing, dig- 
ging and trades will cease to be mean. It is the man who de- 
termines the dignity of the occupation, not the occupation which 
measures the dignity of the man. Physicians and surgeons per- 
form operations less cleanly than fall to the lot of most mechan- 
ics. I have seen a distinguished chemist covered with dust like 
a laborer. Still these men were not degraded, Their intelli- 
gence gave dignity to their work, and so our laborers, once 
educated, will give dignity to their toils. — Let me add, that I see 
little difference in point of dignity, between the various vocations 
of men. When I see a clerk, spending his days in adding figures, 
perhaps merely copying, or a teller of a bank counting money, 
or a merchant selling shoes and hides, I cannot see in these oc- 
cupations greater respectableness than in making leather, shoes, 
or furniture. I do not see in them greater intellectual activity 
than in several trades. A man in the fields seems to have more 
chances of improvement in his work, than a man behind the 
counter, or a man driving the quill. It is the sign of a narrow 
mind, to imagine, as many seem to do, that there is a repug- 
nance between the plain, coarse exterior of a laborer and mental 
culture, especially the more refining culture. The laborer, un- 
der his dust and sweat, carries the grand elements of humanity, 
and he may put forth its highest powers. I doubt not, there is 
as genuine enthusiasm in the contemplation of nature and in the 
perusal of works of genius, under a homespun garb as under 
finery. We have heard of a distinguished author, who never 
wrote so well, as when he was full dressed for company. But 
profound thought and poetical inspiration have most generally 
visited men, when, from narrow circumstances or negligent 
habits, the rent coat and shaggy face have made them quite unfit 
for polished saloons. A man may see truth, and may be thrilled 



51 



with beauty, in one costume or dwelling as well as another ; and 
he should respect himself the more for the hardships, under 
which his intellectual force has been developed. 

But it will be asked, how can the laboring classes find time 
for self-culture. I answer, as I have already intimated, that an 
earnest purpose finds time or makes time. It seizes on spare 
moments, and turns larger fragments of leisure to golden account. 
A man, who follows his calling with industry and spirit, and uses 
his earnings economically, will always have some portion of the 
day at command ; and it is astonishing, how fruitful of improve- 
ment a short season becomes, when eagerly seized and faithfully 
used. It has often been observed, that they, who have most time 
at their disposal, profit by it least. A single hour in the day, 
steadily given to the study of an interesting subject, brings un- 
expected accumulations of knowledge. The improvements made 
by well disposed pupils, in many of our country schools, which 
are open but three months in the year, and in our Sunday schools, 
which are kept but one or two hours in the week, show what 
can be brought to pass by slender means. The affections, it is 
said, sometimes crowd years into moments, and the intellect has 
something of the same power. Volumes have not only been 
read, but written, in flying journeys. I have known a man of 
vigorous intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early edu- 
cation, and whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of 
ah extensive business, but who composed a book of much original 
thought, in steamboats and on horseback, while visiting distant 
customers. The succession of the seasons gives to many of 
the working class opportunities for intellectual improvement. 
The winter brings leisure to the husbandman, and winter eve- 
nings to many laborers in the city. Above all, in Christian 
countries, the seventh day is released from toil. The seventh 
part of the year, no small portion of existence, may be given by 
almost every one to intellectual and moral culture. Why is it 
that Sunday is not made a more effectual means of improvement! 



52 

Undoubtedly the seventh day is to have a religious character; 
but religion connects itself with all the great subjects of human 
thought, and leads to and aids the study of all. God is in 
nature. God is in history. Instruction in the works of the Cre- 
ator, so as to reveal his perfection in their harmony, beneficence 
and grandeur ; instruction in the histories of the church and 
the world, so as to show in all events his moral government, and 
to bring out the great moral lessons in which human life 
abounds; instruction in the lives of philanthropists, of saints, of 
men eminent for piety and virtue ; all these branches of teaching 
enter into religion, and are appropriate to Sunday ; and through 
these, a vast amount of knowledge may be given to the people. 
Sunday ought not to remain the dull and fruitless season, that it 
now is to multitudes. It may be clothed with a new interest 
and a new sanctity. It may give a new impulse to the nation's 
soul. — I have thus shown, that time may be found for improve- 
ment ; and the fact is, that among our most improved people, a 
considerable part consists of persons, who pass the greatest por- 
tion of every day at the desk, in the counting room, or in some 
other sphere, chained to tasks which have very little tendency 
to expand the mind. In the progress of society, with the increase 
of machinery, and with other aids which intelligence and philan- 
thropy will multiply, we may expect that more and more time 
will be redeemed from manual labor, for intellectual and social 
occupations. 

But some will say, " Be it granted that the working classes 
may find some leisure ; should they not be allowed to spend it 
in relaxation ? Is it not cruel, to summon them from toils of 
the hand to toils of the mind ? They have earned pleasure by 
the day's toil and ought to partake it." Yes, let them have 
pleasure. Far be it from me to dry up the fountains, to blight 
the spots of verdure, where they refresh themselves after life's 
labors. But 1 maintain, that self-culture multiplies and in- 
creases their pleasures, that it creates new capacities of enjoy,. 



53 



ment, that it saves their leisure from being, what it too often is, 
dull and wearisome, that it saves them from rushing for excite- 
ment to indulgences destructive to body and soul. It is one of 
the great benefits of self-improvement, that it raises a people 
above the gratifications of the brute, and gives them pleasures 
worthy of men. In consequence of the present intellectual cul- 
ture of our country, imperfect as it is, a vast amount of enjoy- 
ment is communicated to men, women and children, of all con- 
ditions, by books, an enjoyment unknown to ruder times. At 
this moment, a number of gifted writers are employed in multi- 
plying entertaining works. Walter Scott, a name conspicuous 
among the brightest of his day, poured out his inexhaustible 
mind in fictions, at once so sportive and thrilling, that they have 
taken their place among the delights of all civilized nations. 
How many millions have been chained to his pages ! How 
many melancholy spirits has he steeped in forgetfulness of their 
cares and sorrows ! What multitudes, wearied by their day's 
work, have owed some bright evening hours and balmier sleep 
to his magical creations ! And not only do fictions give plea- 
sure. In proportion as the mind is cultivated, it takes delight 
in history and biography, in descriptions of nature, in travels, in 
poetry, and even graver works. Is the laborer then defrauded 
of pleasure by improvement? There is another class of gratifi- 
cations to which self-culture introduces the mass of the people. 
I refer to lectures, discussions, meetings of associations for be- 
nevolent and literary purposes, and to other like methods of 
passing the evening, which every year is multiplying among us. 
A popular address from an enlightened man, who has the tact to 
reach the minds of the people, is a high gratification, as well as 
a source of knowledge. The profound silence in our public 
halls, where these lectures are delivered to crowds, shows that 
cultivation is no foe to enjoyment.— 1 have a strong hope, that 
by the progress of intelligence, teste, and morals among all por- 
tions of society, a class of public amusements will grow up 
*5 



54 



among us, bearing some resemblance to the theatre, but purified 
from the gross evils which degrade our present stage, and 
which, I trust, will seal its ruin. Dramatic performances and 
recitations are means of bringing the mass of the people into a 
quicker sympathy with a writer of genius, to a profounder com- 
prehension of his grand, beautiful, touching conceptions, than 
can be effected by the reading of the closet. No commentary 
throws such a light on a great poem or any impassioned work 
of literature, as the voice of a reader or speaker, who brings to 
the task a deep feeling of his author and rich and various 
powers of expression. A crowd, electrified by a sublime 
thought, or softened into a humanizing sorrow, under such a 
voice, partake a pleasure at once exquisite and refined ; and I 
cannot but believe; that this and other amusements, at which the 
delicacy of woman and the purity of the Christian can take no 
offence, are to grow up under a higher social culture. — Let me 
only add, that in proportion as culture spreads among a people, 
the cheapest and commonest of all pleasures, conversation, in* 
creases in delight. This, after all, is the great amusement of 
life, cheering us round our hearths, often cheering our work, 
stirring our hearts gently, acting on us like the balmy air or the 
bright light of heaven, so silently and continually, that we 
hardly think of its influence. This source of happiness is too 
often lost to men of all classes for want of knowledge, mental 
activity, and refinement of feeling ; and do we defraud the la- 
borer of his pleasure, by recommending to him improvements 
which will place the daily, hourly, blessings of conversation 
within his reach ? 

I have thus considered some of the common objections which 
start up when the culture of the mass of men is insisted on, as 
the great end of society. For myself, these objections seem 
worthy little notice. The doctrine is too shocking to need ref- 
utation, that the great majority of human beings, endowed as 
they are with rational and immortal powers, are placed on earth, 



55 



simply to toil for their own animal subsistence, and to minister 
to the luxury and elevation of the few. It is monstrous, it ap- 
proaches impiety, to suppose that God has placed insuperable 
barriers to the expansion of the free illimitable soul. True, 
there are obstructions in the way of improvement. But in this 
country, the chief obstructions lie, not in our lot, but in our- 
selves, not in outward hardships, but in our worldly and sensual 
propensities ; and one proof of this is, that a true self-culture is 
as little thought of on exchange as in the workshop, as little 
among the prosperous as among those of narrower conditions. 
The path to perfection is difficult to men in every lot ; there is 
no royal road for rich or poor. But difficulties are meant to 
rouse not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by 
conflict. And how much has it already overcome ! Under 
what burdens of oppression has it made its way for ages ! What 
mountains of difficulty has it cleared ! And with all this expe- 
rience, shall we say, that the progress of the mass of men is to 
be despaired of, that the chains of bodily necessity are too strong 
and ponderous to be broken by the mind, that servile, unim- 
proving drudgery is the unalterable condition of the multitude 
of the human race ? 

I conclude with recalling to you the happiest feature of our 
age, and that is, the progress of the mass of the people in intel- 
ligence, self-respect, and all the comforts of life. What a con- 
trast does the present form with past times ! Not many ages 
ago, the nation was the property of one man, and all its inte- 
rests were staked in perpetual games of war, for no end but to 
build up his family, or to bring new territories under his yoke. 
Society was divided into two classes, the highborn and the vul- 
gar, separated from one another by a great gulph, as impassable 
as that between the saved and the lost. The people had no sig- 
nificance as individuals, but formed a mass, a machine, to be 
wielded at pleasure by their lords. In war, which was the great 

LufG. 



56 



sport of the times, those brave knights, of whose prowess we 
hear, cased themselves and their horses in armour, so as to be 
almost invulnerable, whilst the common people on foot were 
left, without protection, to be hewn in pieces or trampled down 
by their betters. Who, that compares the condition of Europe 
a few ages ago, with the present state of the world, but must 
bless God for the change. The grand distinction of modern 
times is, the emerging of the people from brutal degradation, 
the gradual recognition of their rights, the gradual diffusion 
among them of the means of improvement and happiness, the 
creation of a new power in the state, the power of the people. 
And it is worthy remark, that this revolution is due in a great 
degree to religion, which, in the hands of the crafty and aspir- 
ing, had bowed the multitude to the dust, but which, in the ful- 
ness of time, began to fulfil its mission of freedom. It was reli- 
gion, which, by teaching men their near relation to God, 
awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as in- 
dividuals. It was the struggle for religious rights, which 
opened men's eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to reli- 
gious usurpation, which led men to withstand political oppres- 
sion. It was religious discussion, which roused the minds of 
all classes to free and vigorous thought. It was religion, which 
armed the martyr and patriot in England against arbitrary pow- 
er, which braced the spirits of our fathers against the perils of 
the ocean and wilderness, and sent them to found here the freest 
and most equal state on earth. 

Let us thank God for what has been gained. But let us not 
think every thing gained. Let the people feel that they have only 
started in the race. How much remains to be done? What a 
vast amount of ignorance, intemperance, coarseness, sensuality, 
may still be found in our community ! What a vast amount of 
mind is palsied and lost ! When we think, that every house 
might be cheered by intelligence, disinterestedness and refine- 
ment, and then remember, in how many houses the higher pow- 



57 



ers and affections of human nature are buried as in tombs, what 
a darkness gathers over society. And how few of us are moved 
by this moral desolation? How few understand, that to raise the 
depressed, by a wise culture, to the dignity of men, is the high- 
est end of the social state? Shame on us, that the worth of a 
fellow creature is so little felt. 

I would, that I could speak, with an awakening voice to the 
people, of their wants, their privileges, their responsibilities. I 
would say to them, You cannot, without guilt and disgrace, stop 
where you are. The past and the present call on you to advance. 
Let what you have gained be an impulse to something higher. 
Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created 
what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink and sleep, like the infe- 
rior animals. If you will, you can rise. No power in society, 
no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, 
in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. 
Do not be lulled to sleep by the flatteries which you hear, as if 
your participation in the national sovereignty made you equal to 
the noblest of your race. You have many and great deficiencies 
to be remedied ; and the remedy lies, not in the ballot box, not 
in the exercise of your political powers, but in the faithful educa- 
tion of yourselves and your children. These truths you have 
often heard and slept over. Awake ! Resolve earnestly on 
Self-culture. Make yourselves worthy of your free institutions, 
and strengthen and perpetuate them by your intelligence and 
your virtues. 



FRANKLIN LECTURES 



These Lectures were instituted in 1831. They were de- 
signed to give entertainment and instruction, upon terms so mod- 
erate, that every body might attend them. They have been 
continued, with the exception of one year, every winter since 
they were founded, and have been always very fully attended # 
In now publishing the Introductory Lecture to the course for 
1838, the Executive Committee beg leave to give notice, that 
the Lectures will be continued in succeeding years. 

WALTER CHANNING, Chairman. 

David Kimball, Secretary and Treasurer. 

Walter Channing, 
Jonathan Phillips, 
Enoch Hobart, 
William Brigham, 
Lewis G. Pray, 
David Kimball, 
Timothy Claxton, 
E. P. Hartshorn, 
Michael Tombs, 
William C. Martin, 
John Ford, 
Francis Brown, 

Executive Committee, 



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